Less than seven weeks later, Chicago does hold a certain distinction among NFL franchises, but "Super Bowl champion" isn't it. Instead, the Bears are atop Bring On The Weekend's "Most Miserable Offseason" rankings, also known as the MMOs, narrowly edging another 2006 title contender that began stumbling and bumbling as soon as its dreams were dashed.
For the purposes of this Flailing Five, we define the "offseason" as the period beginning immediately after each team's final game of the '06 campaign and continuing through the present, meaning there's still time to make reparations.
So take heart, Bears fans -- general manager Jerry Angelo is a shrewd talent evaluator, and the draft is a little more than a month away. That, and AdamArchuleta is coming to town. And Tank Johnson might be out of jail in time for training camp!

I didn't know two people who disagreed with a GM in a franchise represented a trend (Marty and Donnie vs AJ). Marty and Donnie were deemed expendable by Spanos, Smith, and the rest of the organization. Notice a trend here?

i agree with him on the Titans, but Bennett wasn't a hug loss or Wade. He makes it sound like the ONLy reason why we bought in Harper because of pacman, i guess he didn't pay attention to Reynaldo Hill any this season....

I'm not saying the Colts have taken a huge dip by the people they've lost, but they've lost more than the Bears have, which is basically nobody. The only situation that concerns me is Briggs, and I'm sure he'll cave and play. Other than that it's a bunch of role players and an insanely overated coordinator that didn't even draw up the defense.

Thinking that the Colts had a horrible off-season is ignorant, following the idiotic spew courtesy of **** like brain-dead ESPN trying to make a story. It was the end of the road for Rhodes, June, Harper, Reagor, and Stokley with the Colts.

The Colts weren't going to pay Rhodes to be Addai's back-up, especially with his issues and constant fumbling concerns. June playing out his contract couldn't come soon enough, mother-loving LOL.

Harper has been looking forward to a new contract since the end of last season, right after he couldn't even properly recover a freaking gift-wrapped fumble for a touchdown in what could have resulted in another Super Bowl title for the Colts; I love how the idiots ignore that the Colts spent a 1st round pick in 2005 on CB Marlin Jackson (the guy who intercepted Tom Brady to seal the AFC Championship game), a 2nd round pick in 2005 on CB Kelvin Hayden (the guy who intercepted Rex Grossman for a pick six to seal Super Bowl XLI), and a 2nd round pick in 2006 on CB Tim Jennings. Everyone suddenly loves Harper, but he only played a quarter of the Super Bowl leaving Jackson and Hayden to play in his stead for the remainder of the game.

Reagor and Stokley were both veterans with costly contracts over the next few years, and more importantly failed their end of the season physicals with the Colts after suffering their particular season-ending injuries (serious car accident and Achilles tear, respectively). Mind you, Stokley was a no-show for essentially all of the regular season and absolutely all of the post-season, and Reagor didn't play a down after Week 5. The team won a Super Bowl without either, oh woe the Colts.

If anything, it's off-seasons like this that bought a Super Bowl title to Indianapolis. 17 players on the 2003 roster, who reached the AFC Championship game, were still with the Colts in 2006. The team has won 50 games in 4 years, tying them for third all-time with the 1988-1992 San Francisco 49ers. Bill Polian may talk like a pompous ass more often than not, but it's easily dealt with given that he's a 5-time Executive of the Year and knows what he's doing.

The New England Patriots lost more in Deion Branch last year than the Colts did this year in total imo. It's such a ridiculous non-story.

If people want to harp on a loss, then they should talk about co-defensive backs coach Leslie Frazier taking the job as the Minnesota Vikings' defensive coordinator. Still, the Colts replaced him with Rod Perry who was the defensive backs coach for Carolina for the last 5 years.

The worst offseason has to be the Bills. I can understand letting Fletcher-Baker go as he's not a cover two linebacker but it blows my mind that they traded McGahee and let Clements go to the Niners. I know some Bills fans will argue that McGahee's average was 3.8 last year but that's as good as you can get with that joke of an offensive line. McGahee is going to kill with a line infront of him and it'll be even funnier when whoever the Bills put back there doesn't do jack. Compare this to the moves that the Patriots made and it's no wonder they haven't been to the playoffs since 1999.

Harper's nice, and a solid corner ... but he was expendable for them, especially considering the depth they have in the secondary. Their youngsters have all shown flashes at times. Of the Colts 4 bigger losses, I'd rank them, in order of importance, as

1. Rhodes - While he was the backup, he was critical in their running game having success and offering a different look from Joseph Addai. That said, not a tremendous loss, and certainly replaceable if they draft well.

2. Reagor - LB and CB are more easily replaced for them. The reason he's here is for this factor - they had to likely add talent at the spot anyways. That said, loss of Reagor isn't make or break.

3. June - Everyone always points to the next LB, due to the relative ease of the position in the scheme, but let's not underrate what he did there for them. He made plays. That said, as the season progresses, I think the impact of his loss will slowly disappear as Keiaho or Hagler get acclimated.

4. Harper - Probably the best talent of the group, and a very underrated CB, but this was a position that they were deep in, with plenty of young guys showing flashes, and overall, the position isn't as significant as other areas.

Harper's nice, and a solid corner ... but he was expendable for them, especially considering the depth they have in the secondary. Their youngsters have all shown flashes at times. Of the Colts 4 bigger losses, I'd rank them, in order of importance, as

1. Rhodes - While he was the backup, he was critical in their running game having success and offering a different look from Joseph Addai. That said, not a tremendous loss, and certainly replaceable if they draft well.

2. Reagor - LB and CB are more easily replaced for them. The reason he's here is for this factor - they had to likely add talent at the spot anyways. That said, loss of Reagor isn't make or break.

3. June - Everyone always points to the next LB, due to the relative ease of the position in the scheme, but let's not underrate what he did there for them. He made plays. That said, as the season progresses, I think the impact of his loss will slowly disappear as Keiaho or Hagler get acclimated.

4. Harper - Probably the best talent of the group, and a very underrated CB, but this was a position that they were deep in, with plenty of young guys showing flashes, and overall, the position isn't as significant as other areas.

Great post as always Toonsterwu.

My personal rank of the losses are:

1. Reagor - Colts won the SB without him, but when he was healthy he was a very underrated player. Plus like you've said LBs and CBs are more easily replaced.

2. Harper - This would be a bigger loss if it wasn't for the presence of Kelvin Hayden and Marlin Jackson (maybe Tim Jennings also). Colts should be fine at CB.

3. Rhodes - He was GREAT in the playoffs and AWESOME in the SB. Still, the Colts have their franchise RB in Addai, and good platoon/backup TBs can be found in later rounds of the draft.

4. June - He was a good Cover-2 WLB, but the Colts have lost good WLBs before (Peterson, Thornton) and were able to replace them. As you have already stated, Keiaho and Hagler could very well replace him.

The only reason Bennett and Wade were the two top WR's in 2006 was because they were the healthiest - BJones wasn't 100% and Givens was out the whole year basically. The simple fact is when they were on the team, WR was still a very weak position - you don't spend big money bringing back the same players that made your WR position mediocre in the first place, that makes zero sense. I reckon you're better off having an obvious #1 WR need than spending starter money on average depth while still having a need for a #1 WR, but that's just me. From a pure depth and talent standpoint yeah, losing Bennett and Wade means the WR position is weaker, but the NFL is about smart salary decisions too.

Oh and I think Harper would have been signed regardless of Pacman's incidents. I'm pretty sure GM Reinfeld stated CB as a need before any of it happened. This is because of the weak play of Hill as stated above by smittyjs.

It hasn't been a great offseason for sure, what with Pacman and all, but it hasn't been bad, it just hasn't been great. I'd say the Titans' offseason ranks somewhere amongst all the other teams who have done very little.

Once again, SI.com should stick to taking photos with their $250,000 Canon zoom lenses that they have two of and leave that tricky writing stuff to the other medias me thinks ;)

This guy is an idiot. Getting Kris Dielman to sign with us and for a discount was amazing, and he should wake up and realize that over half of our team is locked up through 2010, and our entire core of players will be here for a long time, and that we are in no cap trouble whatsoever. Honestly, this guy is friggin clueless. He raves about the Bears losing Rivera, and guess what, he is now a coach for the San Diego Chargers. This guy is stupid, we lost Marty Schottenheimer and now we had the 2nd worst offseason of all the teams in the NFL, bull crap. We still have the most talented roster in the league, PERIOD.

This guy is an idiot. Getting Kris Dielman to sign with us and for a discount was amazing, and he should wake up and realize that over half of our team is locked up through 2010, and our entire core of players will be here for a long time, and that we are in no cap trouble whatsoever. Honestly, this guy is friggin clueless. He raves about the Bears losing Rivera, and guess what, he is now a coach for the San Diego Chargers. This guy is stupid, we lost Marty Schottenheimer and now we had the 2nd worst offseason of all the teams in the NFL, bull crap. We still have the most talented roster in the league, PERIOD.

Not to mention most of these guys, had we kept marty, would say we made a mistake keeping him and we won't win because of that. Sometimes you just can't win.